Horace Tabor

Colorado Then & Now: Chapter VI. Leadville & Vicinity

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Several early pioneers camp below Mount Princeton and Mount Antero. Photo by Joseph Collier, circa 1880.

Note: The following is an excerpt from the book, Colorado Then & Now by Grant Collier and his grandfather Joseph Collier.

“This mountain was named after the miners, after D. C. Collier, one of the editors and proprietors of the Register, in consideration of his eminent success as a prospector. The view is from the Perue Fork of the Snake River, which runs down through the willows in the foreground. It is from the direct front, looking down through one of the beautiful, sunny, grassy, parks, which constantly recur, and which, in their season, are covered with gorgeous foliage so peculiar to the western slope of the continent.” – Joseph Collier on an image of Collier Mountain

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Reviews: The Silver Baron’s Wife

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By Donna Baier Stein
Serving House Books
ISBN 978-0-997010-6-5

Reviewed by Forrest Whitman

Lizzy “Baby Doe” Tabor is a tough subject for any novelist to pick, and Donna Stein has done a good job here. There are hundreds of books and articles written about this famous figure from Colorado history. There are also plays and one full length opera. The interpretations of her life and writings are many indeed. What can another historical novel add?

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Reintroducing the Tabors: A Series

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by Francisco A. Rios

Horace Tabor’s Loneliness

Whatever promise the mines in Mexico may hold out to Horace, he pays a terrible price in loneliness, and probably guilt, at being away from his family for months at a time, especially when there is a serious illness at home. The modern device of the telegraph allows for rapid communication, but sometimes it makes his absence from Lizzie all the worse, as he writes on Dec. 4, 1893 from an unstated location.

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Reintroducing the Tabors: A Series

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by Francisco A. Rios

LETTERS FROM CHIHUAHUA

(Editor’s note: Dr. Rios, a retired professor from the University of Colorado at Denver, spent 805 volunteer hours over a span of one year and seven months cataloging hundreds of letters from the Tabor Collection at the Colorado Historical Society (CHS) onto a computer database. We are reproducing some of these letters as a series with the generous permission of the CHS.)

The letterhead of the Santa Eduwiges mining company, near Jesús María in the state of Chihuahua, lists Horace Tabor as president during 1893-94. Don Juan Hart is one of the directors. Jesús María no longer appears on maps, but Horace mentions Guerrero, a town about 75 miles west of Chihuahua, the state capital. Horace writes to Lizzie on Sept 15 1893 with good news about the mine.

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Reintroducing the Tabors: A Series. Part 2 – A Circled Kiss

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by Francisco A. Rios

(Editor’s note: Dr. Rios, a retired professor from the University of Colorado at Denver, spent 805 volunteer hours over a span of one year and seven months cataloging hundreds of letters from the Tabor Collection at the Colorado Historical Society (CHS) onto a computer database. We are reproducing some of these letters as a series with the generous permission of the CHS.)

In the Tabor correspondence, no one uses the name Baby Doe. Her family calls her Lizzie, and Horace, after opening his letters with “My Darling Wife,” calls her Babe. In the Tabor collection at the Historical Society, she appears, for brevity’s sake, as EBT, for Elizabeth Bonduel Tabor, which will come in handy for her later, as she plays off this name to create aliases for herself. This series will refer to her as EBT or Mrs. Tabor and reserve the name Baby Doe for her early years in Leadville.

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